Heroes' Guild
The Heroes' Guild is the home of the Heroes, located at the heart of Albion. The Guild is where Guild Apprentices are trained before they are ready to venture out into the world alone. From the time of its establishment to the time of its demise, the Guild flourished and its Heroes kept the civilized world functioning and in relative safety. History The Heroes' Guild has a very colourful history. Since its spectacular inception and unexpected appearance in the chaotic land of Albion, it has never ceased to produce both great heroes and controversy. The Heroes' Guild was created as a response to the long-age of chaos that was born out of the fall of the Old Kingdom. After the Old Kingdom's fall, much of Albion laid in ruins and its people lived in despair. During these chaotic times a being known as Scythe, found a man named Nostro who he believed would be the key to restore Albion. Founding After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, the remaining population of Albion fell into isolation. Distance bred suspicion, which grew into bloodshed. Soon villagers were doing unspeakable things for fresh water, food or even women of child-bearing age. Whilst mercenaries lived quite happily, selling their sword to vast paranoid sea of vindictive people. Albion was brought to its knees at, edging very close to extinction. Then, out of the East, hope arrived in the most unusual of forms - a bandit, by the name of Nostro. In his youth, Nostro was a bandit and mercenary, driven by an ambition to leave his mark on the world. He was giant of a man, who was not at ease without sword in his iron grip. However, he was not without a sense of decency, but didn't reach full potential until he met a wise old man named Scythe. Scythe was a wraith of a man, a ghost of his former self - the first Archon of the Kingdom, William Black. He seemed to appear out of nowhere and took a profound interest in Nostro - for he saw something in Nostro, something more than a mere bandit. Nostro, unknowingly, possessed the power that all the Archon's descendants shared. So, Scythe hatched a plan: if he could properly guide Nostro, this bandit could achieve great things. He might even once again unite Albion and undo the damage done by the first Archon's and his children. And so Scythe began to tutor Nostro in how to be a leader of men. Under Nostro Following Scythe's counsel, Nostro set about returning security and prosperity to Albion. First, he gathered men and women throughout Albion and founded the Guild, where they could train to become real Heroes. Meanwhile Scythe tutored Nostro in the ways of Will. Using his new found power, along with Scythe's sage counsel, Nostro forced peace on the warring people of Albion. And thus, the Guild of Heroes was born. For a time, it seemed that Albion might return to its former greatness, but those hopes were in vain. Despite Scythe's teachings, Nostro increasingly fell under the sway of a power-hungry courtesan named Magdalena. In time, she corrupted Nostro to the point where the Arena, intended to be a venue in which anyone could settle disputes in public, was debased into a source of popular entertainment and the Heroes' Guild became nothing more than a house of mercenaries driven by lust for profit and fame. These developments disgusted Scythe, who could only watch as Nostro and the Guild fell into disrepute. Finally he vanished, leaving Nostro to his fate. Near the end of his life, Nostro could finally see how power had corrupted him, and how far short he had fallen of his youthful ideas. By then his followers and even his wife had long since abandoned him. Isolated, he was easy prey for an assassin who slipped poison into his food. Nostro knew that he was dying. He called out for Scythe, and his old mentor came to sit vigil with him in his final hours. Scythe with warm affection of the good things Nostro had done in his life. Finally, at peace with himself, Nostro died with the dawn's first light. Scythe disappeared shortly thereafter. Even with the death of its first leader, however, the Guild continued to thrive and lived on. Weaver's Rebellion Not much is known of the Guild's history between the time of Nostro and Weaver, but it is known that in his youth Weaver, together with a cluster of Heroes, Maze among them, rebelled against the previous Guild regime, and its resolution of offering only virtuous Quests. Much blood was spilled in this short revolt in the name of freedom, leaving the number of Heroes, already rare in a world of diminishing Will presence, at its lowest for centuries. Once again Scythe reappeared and proposed Weaver as the new Guildmaster, seeing in him the serene and impartial man he would become. Someone who would leave the moral destiny of all future acolytes in their own hands. Under his leadership, Heroes were free to align themselves with however they wished. The Hero of Oakvale Time went on and new Heroes came and went and the people of Albion lived in relative peace - that is until the evil being Jack of Blades reappeared, searching for his sword, the Sword of Aeons, which was stored within the Guild. He used Maze, which has had a life-debt to Jack since he saved a young Maze's life, to extract information about the sword. It was soon discovered that in order to acquire the sword one needed an artifact called the 'Septimal Key' and blood from the royal blood-line of the Old Kingdom. Jack told Maze to organize a raid against the small town of Oakvale, where members of the blood-line could be found. There the former Heroine and Arena Champion Scarlet Robe was kidnapped by Jack, her daughter, Theresa, was blinded and left in the woods, only to be adopted by bandits. The younger son, however, survived the raid undiscovered until Maze found him and saved his life from bandits. In this young boy Maze saw a way to confront Jack and maybe stop the evil he had been twisted into once and for all. As Maze sees great potential in the boy, he convinces him to join the Heroes' Guild, where he would be trained to become a Hero - the greatest of them all. The Hero then embarks on a journey to discover the reason behind his village's destruction, discovering his destiny, and the true fate of his family along the way. After a time, and after honing his skills, Maze informs the Hero of a blind seeress living among a bandit camp near Oakvale, and advises the Hero to infiltrate the bandit camp. To the Hero's surprise, the blind seeress is actually his older sister who was taken in by Twinblade, a former Hero and the present Bandit King. After a showdown with Twinblade, both the Hero and his sister can leave the camp. Later on in the Hero's life, after he has gained more recognition among the people of Albion, he is invited to fight in the Arena, where his first encounter with Jack of Blades takes place. It eventually becomes clear that it was Jack of Blades himself who hired the Hero's mentor Maze to destroy the Hero's home. Aided by his blind sister, the Hero makes it his mission to defeat Jack of Blades one way or another. The Hero tracks down his mother, and attempts to rescue her from Bargate Prison, where Jack has kept her since the day of the Oakvale raid. However, the Hero is captured and spends a year or more in the prison. When he finally escapes with his mother, the Hero attempts to track down Jack. Maze, however, turns against the Hero and kidnaps his sister. After defeating Maze, the Hero hunts down Jack as he travels to different parts of Albion to activate focus sites necessary to claim the Sword of Aeons. After activating all the necessary focus sites he and his minions attacked the Guild, injuring the Guildmaster in the process. Jack then made his way towards the Chamber of Fate, killed Scarlet Robe and claimed the Sword of Aeons as his own, as it was long ago. In the Chamber of Fate the Hero had his final confrontation with Jack, and after defeating him, the Hero had to choose; either he cast the Sword of Aeons into the vortex created by Jack of Blades' death, ridding Albion of his evil forever, or, strike down his sister Theresa and use her blood to claim the sword and become as powerful as Jack dreamt of. Return of Jack of Blades An entire year passed, the world settled back into the monotones of life and the Guild was rebuilt. The Hero walked around Albion for a year as a legend seeking his new life. With Jack gone Albion experienced something close to peace and people didn't have as much need of Heroes. After the Hero was summoned back to the Guild by the Guildmaster and Briar Rose they receive a message from Scythe, who now resided in the Northern Wastes. He told them about a gathering darkness in the north and of the Summoners. He also told them that the strongest of them should open the Primal Demon Door to the prophets and take the ancient relic called the Fire Heart to summon the Ship of the Drowned and travel to the Northern Wastes. All the great Heroes of the Guild asked the Demon Door to open, but he opened only to the Hero of Oakvale - the strongest of them. He then travels to the shore of Hook Coast, together with Briar Rose, and put the Fire Heart in the lighthouse, when suddenly Summoners attack the lighthouse and the two heroes have to stop them. When the summoners are defeated and The Fire Heart have charged up, The Ship of the Drowned appeared. With it, the Hero traveled to the Northern Wastes, and from its coast, he traveled to the Snowspire Village to talk with Scythe. Scythe's plan was to ask the local Oracle about the evil cursing the Northern Wastes, but for that he needed four glyphs to awaken it. Scythe sent him to the Necropolis, a great city inhabited with ghosts. There he had to search and dig for glyphs at the same time that he had to fight the monsters that lived in the town. After killing many creatures he found all the four glyphs. He then awakened the Oracle who told him that the evil was in fact Jack of Blades, inhabiting a new form. The Oracle told them that Jack now dwelt in the Vulcan behind the door called the Bronze Gate. He also told him that if he wanted to open the gate he had to collect, with the mask of Jack of Blades, the souls of three specific Heroes; The King of the Arena, The Heroine and The Oldest. From then on the Oracle served a source of ancient knowledge to the Hero. These descriptions could match with a lots of powerful heroes. The Hero could now, loud, hear the thoughts of Jack of Blades. Jack tried to manipulate the Hero to kill the Heroes Thunder, Briar Rose, and the Guildmaster to fulfill the quota, while the Hero could as well take the souls of already dead heroes and leave others unharmed, taking the souls of ancient arena fighters, his mother, and Nostro. Although it's unknown what he did with the other Heroes, it is known that the Hero killed the Guildmaster with the inscriptions "Your Health is Low" engraved on his forehead. After opening the Bronze Gate he faced Jack again, this time in the form of a dragon. Once again the Hero emerges victorious as he casts down Jack of Blades' newest form. Scythe telepathically explains to him that the Hero must cast the mask in the flames to destroy it forever, and all the while the mask strives to convince the Hero to wear him, thus being Jack's newest host. The Hero felt Jack's influence within him and his promise for power tempted him to the edge. Eventually, the Hero resists Jack's temptations and casts the mask into the flames, banishing Jack from Albion forever. The Fall of the Heroes After the threat posed by Jack was now gone forever, the Guild now thrived and grew once more. They even appointed a new Guildmaster. However, now people around Albion started to become more and more suspicious of the Guild and its Heroes, more than ever before. They grew weary of some Heroes' arrogance, believing they were above the law. With Jack gone, people thought there was no need for Heroes anymore. One day a mob of villagers attacked the Guild. With the element of surprise, superior numbers, the newly invented guns and the hesitation of most Heroes to attack the people they had sworn to protect, they managed to successfully destroy the Guild. The surviving Heroes fled into the woods and the Guild was no more. , more commonly known as the Guildmaster.]] Leadership Nostro was, as its founder, the first leader of the Guild. The later leaders of the Guild were called the Guildmasters. The only known Guildmasters so far are Weaver and his successor. Maze also describes himself as the 'Head of the Guild of Heroes.' The distinction between these two titles are unknown. Facilities & Amenities The Guild itself was built as a fortress and sanctuary. The heavy, stone-masoned walls provide protection and safety to the young Hero apprentices, while they go about their training. The Guild has, in the past, withstood many foolhardy bandit attacks - even some villages cannot boast this. The Guild is possibly built upon the site of the Archon's Castle. In addition, the Guild boasts facilities and amenities that unrivaled in all of Albion, including: *'Sleeping & Dining Quarters' - The Guild provides all apprentices with their own bed upstairs, within the Guild's sleeping quarters. In addition to the sleeping quarters, there is also a large dining hall downstairs, which has beverages on offer as well as fresh food prepared daily by the best cooks in the region. *'Map Room' - The Map Room, located just beyond the front vestibule and at the heart of the guild's main floor, contains a large three-dimensional map of Albion. It is in the Map Room that you accept Quest Cards the people of Albion deliver to the Guild. Also, if you need to find the Guildmaster at any time during training at the Guild, he is likely to be found in the Map Room, unless he has informed you of the contrary. *'Library' - The guild library contains a wealth of information regarding the Guild itself, the region, and all of Albion. You will found details about the Old Kingdom, as well as the creatures of Albion. The Library is used to expand and refresh one's knowledge of magical spells, potions, medicines, and other powers that a Hero must have to succeed at increasingly demanding Quests. *'Guild Shop' - The Guild shop, also in the main building, provides an opportunity to purchase a variety of weapons, both melee and ranged, in addition to a few clothing and produce items. Of course, you would have to earn yourself a little more gold than what the typical apprentice has on hand in order to purchase them. *'Training Facilities' - Created specifically for developing young Heroes, the training facilities feature a melee arena where young apprentices are able to work on hand-to-hand combat and weaponry skills. Furthermore, there is an archery range with both moving and stationary targets, perfect for honing and refining one's accuracy with the bow. In addition to melee and archery training, there is a Will practice area on the small island between the two bridges. A relatively recent addition, the Will practice area comes complete with state-of-the-art magic-response dummies for practicing the lightning-strike ability until one's Mana runs out. *'Chamber of Fate' - The Chamber of Fate is located through the Guild Library, just beyond the Guild Caves walkway. This is where Heroes' graduations take place. Main article: Chamber of Fate. *'Outbuildings and Grounds' - The Guild's outbuildings and grounds are unrivalled. Not only is the scope of the Guild acreage quite expensive, but the Guild has it own woods and a chalk stream flowing through the midst of the property, but the woods, orchard and stream all provide wild game and fish the Guild's staff parlay into nutritious meals for the apprentices, staff and servants. Furthermore, apples from the orchard just lies around the grounds, waiting to be taken. Residents The majority of those who live in the Guild are trainee Heroes, donning the Apprentice uniform. Most of them never make it to graduation due to either psychological trauma, death, injury, stress, or unwillingness. There is also a tour guide and a group of people who tour the guild constantly, who will either praise or boo you for your alignment. There are also servants to be found in certain parts of the Guild, and there is a Tavern Keeper and a Storekeeper running the Guild's Kitchen and the Guild Store. The Guildmaster pretty much lives there as well. Notes *The two weapons Avo's Tear and Murren Greathammer can be found in the Heroes' Guild. *The Sword of Aeons is locked within the Chamber of Fate, where it can only be removed by using the Septimal Key . *There is a Demon Door near the Will area. Category:Locations